Category: Prophetic Stream

Posted on

May 17


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Jeremiah 8-10

We are in the Prophetic Stream today spendings some time with Jeremiah, the Weeping Prophet. We are using the Common English Bible this week.

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Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

God of Heaven, hear us when we pray. We see the mess that comes from disobedience. Let us be tender toward you, and listen.  May we be clay that can be molded in your hands. We do not want to be like those we have read about today. Make us like you.     Amen.

ch. 8 – begins midstream [continuing the thought that began in ch. 7]  One version called it “…The Valley of Slaughter”. This is the description of how bad things were in Jerusalem as it was approaching 600 B.C. Human sacrifice had been going on, the priests were agents of darkness and not taking people to God. They had been doing astrology full on; consulting moon and stars like pagans gone amok. So God would see to it that the bones of these false priests would be laid out before the heavens – it was much more like Hindu “theology” for this to happen v.s. Judaic theology wherein the followers are buried at their death v.s. eaten by birds or burned on pyres. Judeans had been playing with false religion so they were going to end up as such.  It’s a horror show, folks.  God has been trying to talk to His people, but one may as well try to have a calm conversation with a scared cat!  They run away, listen to lies, they’re impenitent, oblivious to the Lord, they lie to themselves, lie about God and reject God outright.  Judah will be stripped bare for what they are doing. The harvest will not come in… but the enemy will come.  They’ve poisoned what God gave them and now they are poisoned. Healing? not happening. Jeremiah is very pained by all this.

9 – The first verses here is why Jeremiah is nicknamed the Weeping Prophet. What ‘once was’ compared to ‘what is now’ has decayed to such a sorry state of rottenness both spiritually and culturally. Deception is everywhere. The desolation they are seeing will soon completely overtake them.  This once beautiful city will soon be worse off than a dog pen. Jeremiah saw distinctly what was coming for these people. He walked among them (for well over a generation of time) and pleaded, practically begged- trying to persuade them – imploring them to turn from wickedness.  Btw, no one “converted” in his 60 years of ministering and prophesying. Jeremiah certainly had a discouraging assignment. The rebellious and callous ungodliness of these people -who had “firstborn” status with God- virtually broke Jeremiah’s heart.  There will be so many dead bodies when the Babylonians stomp through Judah! My God, My God, won’t these people hear the warnings?!
10 – is a glaring rendition of the pure worthlessness and empty stupidity of idols: either making them, using them, or worshiping them in any manner.  God is true, and living, and powerful, and renders justice, and applies his wrath properly.  He controls all nature – these idol makers are fools; buffoons.  Will you come home to Almighty God?        Since you won’t, you may as well get to packing up your things for you are going to be run out of here.  Your injuries, your destroyed belongings, your decimated families … what did you think would happen for ignoring the Lord’s instruction?!

Then Jeremiah ends the reading today with a humble prayer that is ‘one for the ages.’   “Correct me Lord, but with justice, and not in your anger, or else you will reduce me to nothing.”  Jeremiah knew the times he was living in for certain.

Posted on

May 10


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Jeremiah 5-7

We are in the Prophetic Stream reading the judgments as written by the prophet Jeremiah. We are reading from the Easy-to-Read Version this week.

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Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

God, we ask that you would be a comfort to us; an ever present help in times of trouble. Guide us as we aim to live as Jeremiah did and speak up amid a culture that seems bent on disobedience. We trust you to guide us in our pilgrimage and ministry as we find ourselves living in similar times to what Jeremiah lived in.  Amen

5 – Jeremiah is appalled that there is not even one righteous/loving/God-fearing soul in Jerusalem.  The people talk of God but it is hollow. He then goes into a prayer for 15 verses straight.  Jeremiah vents to God about their wickedness, the punishment coming to them like a lion pouncing on its prey.  They’re about to be treated like animals -since they wander away from God. The children, the leaders, everyone is going to feel the punishment. They ignore His prophecy so the LORD must bring in a foreign nation.  They’ve brought foreign gods to worship from another land, so they are going to be taken to a foreign land (what do they THINK is going to happen?!)  They and everything they own is going to be devoured. These Babylonians may as well be six foot tall locusts – they will leave nothing. These people of Judah are not accidentally straying; their rebellion is deliberate. They are deaf and blind but think they are fine. They lie and are treacherous. It will require the Babylonian army to get their attention.

6 – The enemy of the people of God is coming, and they come to destroy. The people have stopped their ears long enough and God is going to use this foreign army to “cleanse” Judea. The chapter reads like God is even directing the Babylonians, telling them how to overtake the city. As believers we read this and may think, “God, what are you doing?!” Hey, what is God supposed to do? The Judeans have been up and down spiritually for almost 350 years. The north had fallen to Assyria (150 years before Judea did) and in the intermittent century and a half, Judea more or less has an ungodliness contest with itself to see how far they can press the matter in their disobedience. They had deluded themselves. Remember, later in Jer. 25:9 and 43:10 God refers to the Babylonian king as “His servant.” This king Nebuchadnezzar will be sent (by God!) to clean up Judea. If God is not allowed to, then a dark force will be put to work on them. Obedience to God would have been a much better plan. This is just like in Eden; When God’s people do not obey God or His plan, what is God to do?  When they (we) won’t obey, God just needs to clean house. We do the same with spiders and roaches in our houses, do we not? Judea refuses to repent. And they keep bringing offerings to God as if that would cover for their wickedness. The warnings for repentance are insistent, even pathetic. The awful punishment coming to them could be avoided through repentance. But Judah won’t.

7 –  Jeremiah is assigned to stand in the gateway to the city and prophesy to the people about the matter of obedience and repentance. Jeremiah is laying it all out here! The people have been treating the Temple like a kid playing “tag” or something like that. A kid will run all around a yard and then stop with a hand on a structure and declare, “Base!” meaning they can’t be caught or tagged because they are on a base.  Judah was breaking all the commandments all over the country in their ungodly behavior and then coming to the Temple and declaring to themselves that they would not be punished because they were in the Temple. It’s like they are yelling “base!” to God.  I mean God isn’t going to let His own Temple be smashed is He? Not with us in here with our offerings, right? Think again!  The reference in v. 18 “Queen of Heaven” was Ashtoreth. They were worshiping this female sex deity just like all the surrounding pagan nations were doing. All God wanted was their obedience. They are countering with, “we won’t obey, …but we will bring sacrifices! [durrr] The Judeans revered their ancestors (uh, they weren’t obedient either!).  And the more time passes, the worse people become. They have been as pagan as the pagan nations and worse. They’ve done infant sacrifice right in the city, the Temple is polluted by their deeds as they play both sides. They do this Satanic level wretchedness and then bring their offerings to the Temple (same people!) Well God is going to end all this and there will be so many dead that vultures will swarm in to clean up the bodies. Some Hebrews will be preserved in another land, but Jerusalem is going to fall silent.  A preview of this is in Lamentations 1 “…the city is deserted…”  This all- so- did- not- need to happen. But with Judah’s behavior – it did happen.

Posted on

May 3


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Jeremiah 2-4

We are in the Prophetic Stream as we read from The Living Bible this week.

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Commentary by Dr. Drake Travis

Dear Lord: The prospects of the ungodly are oh so grim. The end of the disobedient is certain. I pray we are ready and alert souls who will have ministry in mind as we encounter those who have come the the end of themselves and are therefore ready to hear of The Savior. Amen.

Here are some statistics: Jeremiah spent 20 years warning Judah to repent, 20 years amid the sabres of war as Babylon was sacking the southern Kingdom, and 20 years in retrospect lamenting the destruction of the land of God; Judah and Israel.

2 – The nation has fallen so far. God wants to know, and Jeremiah is assigned to tell them: “you once loved me so much. I defended you and fed you. Anyone who threatened you paid severely.  Now you will worship anything as long as it isn’t Me. There is a national attitude of “whatever buddy!” toward God.  Even the priests and leaders are given to Baal and Molech.”  God is going to continue pursuing Judah and will be trying to love them, but things do not look good.  They were so free and prosperous and strong but have turned themselves into slaves. They rebel at every turn.  They have become more proficient at sinning than those who have had no training in goodness (and vice versa!) It’s as if those who were lost all along come to the Israelites to learn about ‘how to be better sinners.’  It is so utterly pathetic what these people have turned themselves into.  They are dirty dirty dirty, lusting 24/7, anyone who comes to minister to them gets murdered, …and they think that a foreign government is going to be of aid to them!
3 – Israel, called out to be God’s bride, has turned itself into a trolling whore that will expend herself on anyone but her husband, and she doesn’t come home.  God is willing to forgive and reunite with them but their sinfulness is a bit more appealing to them at the time.  Judah held onto God a bit longer (the southern Kingdom) but they have slouched in their pursuit of God too.  Manasseh is king at present.  He’s the one who had Isaiah killed and he is turning out to be the darkest leader the Semitic world has ever seen.  His Satanic wretchedness far outdid Ahab. Manasseh was throwing live babies and young children into fires at evening rituals as a sacrifice to Molech.  Here was Jerusalem – no city had been so blessed, yet no place or people on earth had descended so far down from so far up. They had even become more wicked than their relatives in Israel; the northern kingdom. Judah was disaffectionately dubbed, “the adulterous wife”. And that was just the tip of the matter as for how bad they had become.
4 –  The opening of ch. 4 sounds like, “this is your final chance to exit from the highway to destruction…”  God wants to see total transformation of His people, yet they are bent on wickedness.  and the enemy army is on the march to come flatten them!  The sword is raised, a lion is at the gate, their chariots and horses are coming, war and death and crushing will engulf Judah. It is going to be awful – and Jeremiah can see it prophetically. It will happen.  The first influx of Babylonian soldiers enter Judah in 605 B.C. – 21 years after Jeremiah is called into ministry. The siege is progressively moving across Judah until 586 B.C. when Jerusalem is sacked and the Temple is destroyed.  Jeremiah is warning them for two decades to turn but God’s people are stubborn, dull to truth, skilled at deviance, and moronic about righteousness. It’s amusing that, as the enemy is closing in on them, some of the Judeans are pausing to put on mascara and “doll up” themselves.  That’s as dopey as the town being on fire, and stopping the work of dousing the fire so you can have time to wash and paint your house … before it burns to an ash heap!  Something is really wrong with these people. The sad thing is that it is an illustration of all of us.